E30 325i Rag-Top

Please put prices against the items you have listed, as per forum rules, thanks.

Have to have a dig back through the records to see what I can find for you mate.

Get an inspection from someone that specialises in BMWs, forget about that AA type sh*t, they don’t even read the fault codes.

Got your ChilI Peppers playing ok now..?

There are some pretty innocuous reasons why cars are de-registered, long term stored with owner overseas, forgot to put it on hold, etc. However, that is a good question, personally I would check things like that before buying a car, as part of due dilligence. Not all buyers are so switched on to background checks etc, and might not think to ask about such things. I think in terms of the laws on a private sale it is buyer beware, and even if you specifically ask and get told "she's all good" I'm not sure if there is anything you can do about it. Personally, when selling cars the amount I reveal is directly related to how much of a know-all bell-end the buyer is being, if they are trying to talk up issues they read about on the internet to get the price down then I tell them nothing if not directly asked. If they are more innocent then I tend to be more open, even told a guy that a car wasn't for him once as he was a nice family guy without much cash about to buy a polished turd off me.

Even with GST at 15% on purchase and shipping costs and doing everything above board if you need another $20k on a $50k car I would suggest you are paying over the odds. Unless you get hit with massive bills at compliance time due to hidden problems that is.

Tell Ange to smile when she's in your photos!! Was she not enjoying a day out at ANOTHER car meet?

Does the diffuser have the venturi shaped into it? From the photos it looks like it is flat across the top, with nothing underneath. How low are you going to be running the car? To get the real benefits from the diffuser it has to be scraping the ground which can be problematic on most NZ tracks as they are bumpy as hell.

So who is the Anthony in Dargaville then? With their 1 star feedback on TradeMe. Clearly they have lifted the advert straight off the other site?

Late 80s Italian luxury car, been sitting for a long time with little to no use... would need to be a real passionate (read knowledgeable / got lots of parts already) fan to take either of those cars on. I wonder what the parts availability would be like on those, possibly third-party, electrics, switches, etc. might be common across some other brands might be obtainable, but any Maserati specific parts would be hard to find and big-$$$ I would suggest.

If you are looking at E91 wagons, overall a pretty good car for the money, I would suggest you look to pay the extra and get a diesel or six cylinder petrol over the four cylinder petrol (320i, etc) as the 4-pot is pretty disappointing and has a poor record for oil and coolant leaks.

I believe the later Bluetooth versions are all backwards compatible so new phone should work with an older car install. As Dean says you might not get the full functionality that you get with newer models, such as music streaming, or text but phonecalls should be no issue. No sure if the E53 came with the snap-in adapter but I would think the iPhone 7 would be a bit too big to fit in one of those which is a shame as they make a big difference to the reception and music quality.

Is the Golf factory, or is it a kit that has been added? I remember when boxy guards were all the rage in the late 80s early 90s - M3, Audi Quatto, Lancia Integrale to name just a few. Body kits to add the boxy look were also quite widely available, for some very odd choices of donor car as I remember. Might be worth a google at some point. I can't remember if there was a high performance Golf that came like that from the dealer, I have seen a couple like this but I can't remember the details. Certainly suits the lines of the early Golf, like in that photo.

Not so sure about NZTA not wanting to know, the onus is always on the importer to provide the information to meet the requirements. There are too many "cowboy" importers that buy things without checking and then try and bullshit their way through the system. Unfortunately there also appear to be a number of cowboy compliance agents that either don't know the rules or are easily persuaded to put things through even though they shouldn't. Hopefully the review at NZTA will catch a few more of these outfits out. The fact that this car has plates on it but hasn't been registered suggests to me the owner has a very liberal view of the whole process.

Almost as cool as the M3 behind it...

Works well as guard dog though Chris, that bark is bloody scary.

Took the 'vert on the BMWCC run down to Port Waikato. Lovely day for it and a great drive to a cool cafe. After an issue with one of the tyres on the Alpina rims presented a problem and required a last minute swap of all 4 wheels and tyres over to my race rims everything ran smoothly. One hundred and fourty mile round trip in good weather and never missed a beat, very relieved and very happy. Did more miles in one day than over the last three or four years. I do really need to use this car more.

BMW Head Office demonstrator, one of three coupes plus three convertibles in country. Good to see it is being used for the VIP customers Graham.

Mentions that he had a number of M3s, which would suggest he would be aware of the rarity of the Ceccotto edition. Ok this was back in the mid 90s when you could buy an E30 M3 for a good price and the Ceccotto would have been only a little more expensive. Maybe as Martin suggested it was damaged in some way which would have made it a candidate for a race car build. Whatever the reason I can’t see it adding any value to it as a race car.

Possibly the most pointless photo ever to appear in a used car advert...

This popped up on TardMe this morning, an interesting car for a number of reasons. https://www.trademe.co.nz/motors/specialist-cars/competition-cars/auction-1949717473.htm?rsqid=d1a6bd60f8324d598e6f1128b2853999 Why someone would take a Ceccotto edition and turn it into a race car is beyond me, must have been done before the prices started to sky rocket. Too far gone (and too hard to get the limited edition parts) to turn it back into a road car which is where the real value would be. As a race car the details are a bit sparse, no photos of the engine, or brakes / suspension set up and hardly a mention in the listing. Unless it has some real nice trick bits in it, then the price is probably a bit over inflated. Nice job of the JPS livery, just a shame they have covered over the limited edition blue paint work on the outside...

Yeah, but then I would have to come back and pick it up, rather than leaving it behind and not returning!

But, Glenn, how do you get the smoker in the RV? Does it have it's own special trailer to tow it along behind you. Nice work though, pics are definately making me hungry.

A key point in the background info.. Vehicles belonging to individuals with a confidential listing have not been included. So anyone that has requested their information to be private and confidential will not have their vehicles included in this data. This is now being adopted more and more often. Still a useful tool to play with though.

Isn’t it though...? Wonder what the policy is for test drives? I probably can’t show proof of that much funds, but I could leave a child as collateral.